Qimage Tutorial

Informations

• Publié par: Onfue
• Nombre de lectures: 81
• Langue: English

Extrait

Initial Page and Printer SetupBefore we begin processing images in Qimage, we need to use the printer driver for your specific printer to set up some basic preferences such as type of paper, paper size, and printer ..." />

Qimage Quick Tutorial

Welcome to the Qimage Quick Tutorial. This tutorial is designed to familiarize you

with essential areas of the user interface and allow you to begin producing optimal

quality prints within about 10 minutes. Some "advanced" notes will be offered along

the way, however, the first time through the tutorial we suggest that you ignore the

"advanced" section at the bottom of some steps. Once you have been through the

basics, you can go back through and read the advanced notes and proceed to the

"Learn by Example" section of the help at the end of the tutorial if you like.

The Qimage user interface (UI) has been optimized for the purpose of batch printing

and batch image processing. Since the main window is a general "control panel" for a

job, it can look quite complex or intimidating at first glance just due to the number of

controls available on the window. The interface is designed with both simplicity and

function in mind, however, so learning the difference between

essential

versus

advanced

areas of the window can go a long way in allowing you to concentrate on

what you need without being distracted by things that come later. We'll begin by

learning how to set up our printer and paper preferences.

Next (Printer Setup)>

Initial Page and Printer Setup

Before we begin processing images in Qimage, we need to use the printer driver for your specific printer to set up some basic preferences

such as type of paper, paper size, and printer quality. You set or change these preferences not on the Qimage panel but by using the printer

setup button (printer-with-screwdriver button highlighted above/top) to open your printer driver. Click the printer setup button. When the

printer setup dialog appears, select your printer and then click "Properties". The specific selections and settings that appear on subsequent

dialogs will be different for different printers/drivers. Using the print driver setup dialogs, be sure to select the type of paper you are using,

the paper size, and set output quality to the highest (photo) quality settings. You may also make selections such as "borderless" from the

driver setup. Click "OK" on the driver setup window(s) to accept the settings and close the printer setup dialog.

The selections made in the print driver will be reported back to Qimage and settings such as paper size, margins, and driver resolution will

display above the preview page (highlighted text below the printer setup button). Note that the resolution (PPI) listed is the resolution of the

driver, not the final resolution of your prints. It is therefore normal to see numbers like 720 x 720 for an Epson even if printing at 2880 x 1440

or higher resolutions: your final output will still be the resolution/quality selected in the driver. Unlike most other printing software, Qimage

will remember your print driver settings for future sessions so that you do not have to repeat the printer setup routine each time you use

Qimage. Note that you can click the highlighted "portrait" or "landscape" buttons under the preview page if you prefer to work with your

page in a different orientation. Now that we have set your page and printing preferences, it is time to find some images to print.

Advanced: Qimage controlled printer settings

Note that if you have an ICC profile for the printer, paper, and ink you are using, the profile can by activated dropping down the "Prtr ICC"

selection and selecting "Choose new profile". ICC profiles are the preferred method of color management as opposed to other, less specific

methods such as PIM and EXIF Print, however, if you are not familiar with ICC profiles, it is best to leave "Prtr ICC" set to "Off" for now. If

you do decide to use a printer profile, make sure you set your print driver settings (using the process described in the first paragraph on this

page) so that they match the settings needed for the profile. To be effective, any printer profile must come with documentation regarding

specific print driver settings because settings such as quality, resolution, enhancement features, etc. must be set to match the profile, as these

settings describe a baseline for which the profile is applied. If you activate a printer profile in both the print driver settings "ICM" section and

also in Qimage's "Prtr ICC" for example, you will be double profiling and get strange results.

The "Res" settings above control how "smooth" the final prints appear. The first "Res" setting refers to the output resolution to use for normal

prints while the second "Res" setting refers to the output resolution to use for posters that cover more than one page.

Note that Max is

recommended for normal prints, High for posters, and the Interpolation method is best left on the "Hybrid" setting. Sharpening is normally

best left on the "5 (default)" setting.

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Next (Working with Thumbnails)>

Step 1: Working with Thumbnails

Step 1 in almost any workflow is to locate images on your hard drive or other media. Since Qimage is batch processing software where we

often perform operations on multiple images, we select images by looking at (and highlighting) thumbnails. We simply point Qimage to a

location (drive and folder), allow Qimage to display thumbnails for the images in that folder, and then select the images that we would like to

process by highlighting the appropriate thumbnails. The above highlighted area shows that Qimage sees 9 images in a folder called "c:

\images" (the current folder). Note that the folder tree (where we can select a different folder) is hidden in the above example so that more

thumbnails are visible. The ability to show/hide the folder browser is your option. If the folder tree is hidden as above, simply click the blue

bar where the word "Folders" appears and the folder browser will open. Once you choose your folder, you may optionally hide the folder

browser again by clicking again on the "Folders" bar. Note that the first time you enter a folder, Qimage will take some time to build the

thumbnails for all images in the folder. You may, however, begin selecting thumbnails even while Qimage is building thumbnails in the

background. Once all thumbnails have been built for the folder, subsequent visits to the folder will display thumbnails almost instantly. Now

that we have found a folder with images that you wish to process, let's pick a few of those images and select them in the thumbnail grid.

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Next (Selecting Thumbnails)>

Step 2: Selecting Thumbnails

Once we have found the folder of our choice and thumbnails for images in that folder appear, we need to identify the images from that folder

that we would like to print/process. While there is a "Select All" option, many times we only want to print selected images. Above we have

selected three photos. Selected photos show with a blue outline. Selecting multiple photos follows the Windows standard using Ctrl and Shift

keys. In the above example, we left clicked on the first photo with the mouse and then held the Ctrl key on the keyboard while left clicking

with the other two photos. Now that we have found and selected photos by highlighting the appropriate thumbnails, we are ready to tell

Qimage what we would like to do with the selected images.

Advanced: Exploring Right Click Options

Qimage is much more than just a "print processor". Photos may be copied, moved, renamed, converted to other formats (Pro and Studio

versions only), filtered, etc. Once you have selected some thumbnails, right click in the thumbnail grid to see all the operations that can be

performed on those selected thumbnails.

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Next (Selecting a Print Size)>

Step 3: Selecting a Print Size

Now that we have selected a few photos by highlighting the thumbnails of those images, we want to select a print size for those images. We

do this by using the highlighted controls above. If we would like to print 4x6 prints of the selected photos, we simply click the size dropdown

highlighted above in "Print Properties" and select the 4x6 size from the dropdown. The photos will be added to the document at a size of 4x6.

Now we can look at the preview page to see what our document looks like.

Advanced: Other Ways to Add Images

Once you have selected an initial size, you can continue to add images at the "last used" size. For example, after selecting the 4.00x6.00 size

above, you can double click on thumbnails one at a time to add new photos at that same size. You can also highlight multiple thumbnails and

drag them to the preview page, and they will be added at the "last used" size. The "last used" size is always listed/visible in the "Print

Properties" panel.

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Next (Refining Print Size)>

Step 4: Refining Print Size

When we clicked the "4.00x6.00" size using the size dropdown, we added the three selected images to the page at a size of 4x6. The large

highlighted section above shows a preview of what our printed page looks like. At this point, we are ready to print using the button with the

printer icon highlighted on the top/right.

That's really all there is to it. Qimage offers many options that allow you to refine the size/position of your prints "after the fact" and the

ability to refine crops, create filters, etc. Now that you know the basics and have learned how to quickly find your images, select images, and

add them to the document or "queue", you can move on to the "Learn by Example" section if you would like to refine your skills and move

on to advanced operations.

Advanced: Taking it a step further by understanding print size and location.

There are several reasons why your preview page may differ in appearance from the page above. To understand some of the basics that

control print size and location, we have highlighted some important buttons that control the final size and placement of images on the page.

If the size of your prints is not exactly 4.00 x 6.00 (size is shown in the View/Print Queue on the lower left of the window), you may simply

need to give Qimage permission to crop images to match the size you chose. If the aspect ratio or "shape" (width/height) of your image

doesn't fit perfectly in the print size chosen, there are two options to handle this mismatch. The crop button (highlighted button above with

scissors icon) controls how aspect ratio mismatches are handled. If the button is in the

down

position when the print size is initially chosen,

Qimage will crop a portion of the image to obtain the exact size (4.00 x 6.00 in this case). If the button is in the

up

position, Qimage will print

the entire image inside a 4.00 x 6.00 frame, resulting in a print that may be smaller than the size selected in one dimension. To change this

crop/fit preference after you have already added images to the document, simply select all the images on the preview page and then click the

crop button (scissors icon) to change "crop to size" or "fit in frame".

Also note that the position of images on the page and the number of images that will fit on a page depends on the placement option chosen. If

you are not getting three 4x6 prints per page, you may just need to change your image placement option to a more optimal placement method.

Note that we have chosen the "optimal/spaced" placement method and have highlighted that button just below the preview page. The icon on

the button shows the currently selected placement method, but you can also "hover" the mouse over the button to find out what method is

selected.

The size of the paper also determines how many prints will fit on a page. If your current print driver settings show a page size

(visible in the above highlighted section) of less than 8.0 inches in one dimension

or

less than 10.0 inches in the other dimension, it will be

impossible to fit three 4x6 prints on one page. To correct for this, click the highlighted printer setup icon (printer with wrench) and select a

larger paper size and/or different margin settings from the "properties" window of your print driver.

Advanced: Exploring Right Click Options

As with selected thumbnails, there are many options available when prints are selected on the preview page. Try selecting a print on the

preview page and then right clicking on that print to see the options available. Also note that changing the size of a print requires nothing

more than selecting the print on the preview page and clicking a new size button. For example, select one of the 4x6 prints on your page and

then click the size dropdown and select "5.00x7.00" to change the 4x6 to a 5x7 print.

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Next (Learn by Example)>